The 3rd anniversary of KarmaFree Cooking is approaching and I just can’t believe so much time has gone by already…

It seems just like the other day when I was taking a cooking class in Jupiter FL, the Conscious Gourmet Seminar from Dianne Carlson, when I learned what a blog was and how people used them to share their recipes and thoughts in. The idea of creating a blog immediately resonated with me for various reasons:

I am a passionate vegetarian – I did not grow up vegetarian… heck, I would have laughed at anyone who would have told me in my 20’s that in a few years I would become vegetarian. But since I have become vegetarian, I have seen the positive changes in my health, my “estados de animo” and even my spiritual inclinations.

I am passionate about cooking vegetarian food – it’s so weird, almost every vegetarian I know loves to eat, talk about food and talk about cooking vegetarian food. Why? Possibly because we live in Puerto Rico where the culture is not very vegetarian-friendly and we are kind of “forced” to create our own if we want to enjoy delicious and creative vegetarian fare.

I am a passionate chat leader – This reminds me of my days working in Marketing at Procter & Gamble… A chat leader was someone who was an “early adopter” of a technology or a product and loved to talk about it to others. That’s me!!! Maybe I am no pioneer in the areas of what a vegetarian is, but I certainly love to answer any questions people might have about my diet, my lifestyle and the benefits it has in my life. I am certainly not selfish about what I know…

Living my vegetarian lifestyle in Puerto Rico has generated A LOT of questions from people asking me – WHAT DO YOU EAT? Because people here have this notion that when you delete meat products from your diet, there’s nothing else in the supermarket to fill your dinner plate with. And yet there are SO MANY ALTERNATIVES.

That was what moved me to create KarmaFree Cooking and its counterpart in Spanish, KarmaFree Cooking en Español. But having a blog is a lot of work… it’s like having an extra job. I need to be thinking of new recipes to make, I need to photograph them, write them up, publish them, promote them to generate traffic and new readers…

But you know what?? I LOVE IT… and I do it with great honor and responsibility. KarmaFree Cooking has given me a platform to share not only with Puerto Ricans around me, but with people around the world, what really is to live a vegetarian lifestyle. To show people that vegetarians are not people from another planet; that we do not eat strange food; that we also enjoy living life and enjoying delicious food and that it’s not as limiting as people originally might think.

And what gives me immense pleasure is reading the comments of people I do not know personally telling me how wonderful they think the recipes are, how useful the information I share is and how I have encouraged them to follow a vegetarian lifestyle. The satisfaction I feel when I learn I have touched one more life is indescribable. Now KarmaFreeCooking can also be found in Facebook and on Twitter, allowing our fans to be in touch with us and the information we share in their preferred format.

And now we have fans all over the world… our readers are mainly from the US, but a large chunk of our fan base comes from the UK, Canada, Australia, Russia, Brazil, India, Mexico, Philippines, Norway, Thailand, Greece, Turkey, Netherlands, Singapore, South Africa, Italy, Hong Kong among many others. This is a true meeting of the Nations in KarmaFree Cooking. It’s mind boggling to me thinking you might be sitting in Japan, Australia or Argentina and reading my articles and commentaries.

I am now participating in this competition, Project Food Blog, where over 1,700 food bloggers will be competing to become the next food blog star. I hope you VOTE for me when the voting period starts. I am prepared to take on all the challenges Project Food Blog throws at me and hopefully you’ll have a good time reading about them.

I can definitely be the winner because I am committed to be an advocate of the vegetarian lifestyle even of some of you are not committed to become a vegetarian just yet… I am patient… I have perseverance… and hey, maybe you’ll also surprise yourself becoming a vegetarian, just as I was surprised when I did.

Thanks for all that you, our readers, give me every day. Thanks for making KarmaFree Cooking part of your day… Thanks for sharing our articles with your friends and family and THANKS for being open to a vegetarian lifestyle. I hope to be able to continue providing you with information you find useful and interesting… Madelyn.